Duke spent the non-conference portion of the season racking up impressive victories, and the Blue Devils are the unquestioned favorites to claim the ACC title.

Forget about them for a moment, though. The squad with the best chance of claiming the No. 2 seed in the ACC Tournament this March might surprise you. It’s the group that lost to Old Dominion—yes, the Old Dominion team with just two victories all season—a couple of days before Christmas.

Virginia has surprised this season to become the second-best team in the ACC. (AP Photo)

Say hello to the sneaky dangerous Virginia Cavaliers. As crazy as it might sound, there’s more than one reason to believe this three-loss team is capable of claiming the conference’s second-best regular-season record.

For starters, Tony Bennett’s tempo-controlling wonders opened ACC play Sunday by hurdling a major personal roadblock—North Carolina had won the previous four games in Charlottesville, but the Cavaliers asserted their defensive dominance in the second half of a 61-52 win. The Tar Heels love to push the basketball as much as any team in the country; they had at least 72 possessions in every single game before visiting Virginia.

The Cavaliers held them to just 63. As UNC coach Roy Williams put it, “Tony’s club really did some things that took away what we wanted to do.”

The culmination of that Tar Heel frustration was the game-breaking 15-2 run the Cavaliers delivered in the second half. “It all started on the defensive end,” junior Joe Harris told Sporting News. “I thought we did a good job getting back in transition, not allowing any easy looks. Carolina tends to get out and run, and a lot of their baskets are easy baskets when they’re running in transition. I thought we did a really good job getting back and making them work against a set defense.”

On its own merit, just beating North Carolina isn’t nearly enough of a reason to say the Cavaliers are the favorites to claim the No. 2 spot. The Tar Heels are talented, sure, but this year’s squad has a long way to go before it reaches its potential, if it ever does.

Virginia’s ability to control the tempo against any opponent—Bennett’s team has been above 63 possessions in just three games, all blowout victories—can be a huge factor in this year’s ACC. Every team in the conference is a work in progress—with the exception of battle-tested Duke—and the established defense-first, slow-it-down system in Bennett’s fourth year at Virginia gives them a leg up on teams with more talent but less role certainty.

And then there’s the schedule factor. This year’s ACC slate provides an opportunity for Virginia. As Ken Pomeroy pointed out on his website (kenpom.com ), the Cavaliers only play Duke, N.C. State and Miami—three preseason ACC favorites—once each; that’s a huge reason his prediction systems lists the Cavaliers as favorites to finish second in the league.

The opening of the Cavaliers’ ACC slate sets up perfectly. Of their first nine games, they play the three best teams at home—UNC, Florida State and N.C. State (Boston College and Clemson are the other two home games)—and have road contests against teams picked in the bottom half of the league—Wake Forest, Clemson, Virginia Tech and Georgia Tech.

Going 9-0 to start ACC play isn’t impossible—the Pomeroy prediction formula has the Cavaliers favorite in all nine games—and 7-2 or 8-1 is certainly realistic, before they head to a road game at Maryland. Of course, the Cavaliers still have to win the games, and winning conference games is never easy, for any team.

But the biggest reason the Cavs are legitimate is the return of senior point guard Jontel Evans.

“I’m not trying to say that it was a one-man game, but Jontel was really impressive in the second half,” Williams said during Monday’s ACC coaches teleconference. “If the statistics were correct, he had six assists and zero turnovers in the second half. It’s hard to speed him up, because he is so quick himself and good with the basketball.”

When healthy, Evans’ ability to control tempo and also put pressure on opposing defenses by getting to the rim—and scoring or kicking out to shooters—is unique on the Cavaliers’ roster. On the other end of the court, the All-ACC defender from last season is strong enough and quick enough to keep opposing point guards from doing the same. He is Virginia’s most important player, even if his numbers don’t stand out on their own.

That whole “when healthy” part has been tricky, though.

It has been a frustrating season for Evans. He has been bothered by a lingering foot injury; the North Carolina game was only his fifth of the season, and only the second in which he played more than 20 minutes. The Cavaliers have been cautious with his return to the court; he had a screw inserted in his fifth metatarsal of his right foot after suffering a stress fracture in late September. The optimistic initial diagnosis was reportedly six weeks; it has been more than three months, and he’s just now getting close to full health.

In Virginia’s three losses this season—ugly ones, to George Mason, Delaware and Old Dominion—Evans only played three minutes, against Delaware. But in a big road win at Wisconsin—Kohl Center is a notoriously tough place for non-conference opponents to survive—Evans played 16 minutes off the bench. In a win against Tennessee, he played 18 minutes. And, of course, there was the Carolina game.

“It’s huge having him,” Harris said, the junior shooter who leads Virginia with 15.3 points per game. “He’s our senior leader. He knows what Coach Bennett wants from a point guard.”

“It’s huge having him,” Harris said, the junior shooter who leads Virginia with 15.3 points per game. “He’s our senior leader. He knows what Coach Bennett wants from a point guard. He does a good job of dictating the pace of the game, really controlling the tempo offensively. He’s a great guy to put on the ball; he gets after it and spearheads our defense.”

Of course, even with the return of Evans and the favorable schedule and the tempo-controlling system and the momentum-building win against North Carolina, nothing is certain for this Cavaliers team. Even when the Cavaliers are playing their best, their margin for error is small because of the style they play. Their adjusted offensively efficiency of 104.8 is just 85th in the country; a so-so offense means that couple of blown defensive assignments could be the difference between making or missing the NCAA Tournament.

Starting ACC play with a 9-0 record is possible, but so is losing at Wake Forest on Wednesday or losing at Clemson on Saturday. “We’ve shown that when we’re locked in, we can play effectively, and when we’re not, we certainly can struggle, like a lot of teams do,” Bennett said. “That’s a lesson we’ve learned the hard way.”

If that win against North Carolina is any indication, though, the lesson seems to have been learned. And that could be bad news for the rest of the ACC.